STAKEHOLDER COMMITTEE #4 PROJECT 21 MEETING S UMM ARY Wednesday, September 30 th, 2015 Ralph Thornton Center Toronto, Ontario
This meeting summary is a compilation of questions and feedback received during the Stakeholder Committee #4, held on September 30 th, 2015 from 7:00pm 9:00pm at the. If you have any questions or comments regarding the summary, please contact either: Dana Roebuck Development Coordinator First Gulf Phone: 416-773-7143 droebuck@firstgulf.com OR Dave Hardy Principal Hardy Stevenson and Associates Limited Phone: 416-944-8444 ext. 222 davehardy@hardystevenson.com Contents 1. Welcome and Introduction...... 3 2. Review of Project 21.... 3 3. Review of findings from previous workshops...... 4 4. Introduction to the Master Plan... 4 5. Stakeholder Ideas: Master Plan.... 5 6. Clarifications.... 6 7. Next Steps....... 7 Appendix A Pictures and notes from Master Plan exercise 2
1. Welcome and introduction Meeting Summary The fourth Stakeholder Committee meeting was held on Wednesday, September 30 th, 2015 at the Ralph Thornton Centre, 765 Queen Street East. As stakeholders arrived at the venue, they were welcomed by Derek Goring and Dana Roebuck from First Gulf, Dave Hardy, Dr. Charlotte Young, and Jeremiah Pariag from Hardy Stevenson and Associates Limited (HSAL), and Jake Forster from the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). The purpose of Stakeholder Committee Meeting #4 was to allow stakeholders to view a potential example for the Master Plan for 21 Don Roadway, and to also provide their input and feedback for the Master Plan. Before moving into the recap of the project, Dave Hardy outlined the agenda and discussed meeting roles and meeting courtesies. The presentation that was used for this workshop can be found at http://project21.firstgulf.com/. Representatives from the following organizations attended this meeting: First Name Organization/Affiliation Michael Holloway Ward 30 of Cycle Toronto Dina Graser Toronto Arts Council Saleem Hall WoodGreen Employment Services Amanda Santo Waterfront Toronto John Wilson West Don Lands Committee Michelle Cummings Corktown Residents and Business Association Eyren Davis Rowe Farms/Leslieville BIA Gerry Brown Ward 30 of Cycle Toronto Dylan Reid Walk Toronto Jena Tarabad Dixon Hall Employment Services Angela Stea City of Toronto. The following organizations sit on the Stakeholder Committee, but were unable to attend the meeting: Ralph Thornton Community Centre Film Ontario Riverside District BIA South Riverdale Community Health Centre **Stakeholder Committee members represent broad interests and representation from the community. The following summary provides an overview of the discussion and represents the active participation of participants listed above, and not necessarily the full consent. 2. Review of Project 21 The first portion of the meeting was a review of Project 21. Derek Goring, Vice President of Development of First Gulf, provided an overview of the project and welcomed general questions from the Stakeholder Committee. The following questions and comments were noted: 3
Questions/Comments Who will the City planner for the project be? The land is toxic from previous use. If a skyscraper is built, they need to go down to the bedrock. If massive holes are dug for parking and subway lines, what is the plan? Will the site create local employment and strive to improve local economic social development? Will First Gulf reconsider the power plant and the oil site? Consider keeping some or parts of those buildings to improve the character and heritage of the site. Will the new Gardiner design affect the site? Will the site have interim uses before it is totally developed? First Gulf Response Angela Stea will be the lead planner The site is not as toxic as widely believed, it varies based on location. Towards the west end of the site, it is not bad. There have been tests done; however, there has not been a formal risk assessment yet, which will likely start next year. There are also new technologies for remediation that could be used. First Gulf will keep this in mind going forward We are in active discussions with the City and other service providers to investigate how to create these types of opportunities. There are three buildings within the master plan area already designated which will be retained. At this time there is no plan to retain any of the buildings that were part of the Unilever plant. We have been working with the Gardiner EA team, and are confident that all options for the Gardiner currently being considered would work for our site, but some may result in design changes. This is something we re interested in pursuing, but site access presents some significant challenges. 3. Review of Findings from Previous Workshops The next portion of the meeting was a review of the feedback from the previous Community Workshops and Stakeholder Committee Meetings, which have taken place since early 2015. Dave Hardy reviewed slides which briefly summarized the main findings from the vision and infrastructure sessions. The Stakeholder Committee was also provided with a more comprehensive handout that went into greater detail about the findings from the previous sessions. This handout can also be found at the project website. 4. Introduction to the Master Plan Jake Forster and Derek Goring presented PowerPoint slides which included a series of precedent images and general concept designs for the Master Plan. The concept designs included examples of public transit development, building heights, infrastructure expansion, and more. Jake and Derek emphasized that the slides and images that were presented were possible examples of what the site could eventually include, and all aspects of the design were still open for discussion. After this portion of the presentation, the following questions were asked by stakeholders: 4
Questions/Comments Is the routing of Broadview set in stone based on the OMA presentation? Could Broadview be connected to Saulter or Bouchette? The Queens Quay overpass may not work for a West connection. Queens Quay will be very local and pedestrian friendly. It is more like the Bayview extension. It would make more sense if we had something coming up Broadview and going south. Can Gardiner go over Queens Quay instead of under? If Broadview is routed slightly further east, it would give more distance to make lower grade slope. Is this possible? The streets seem very straight. Will a curved street provide more of a gradual decline because it would provide more room? I.e. Yorkdale Mall on-ramp. First Gulf Response Right now, any design is on the table. We are also looking for your ideas tonight. This comment has been noted. This is not likely because the Gardiner needs to connect to the DVP. This could be a consideration of a future design. That could be considered as a design option. 5. Stakeholder Ideas: Master Plan For this portion of the meeting, Dr. Young directed the Stakeholder Committee to refer to their handout and to brainstorm how they wanted the developed site to look. There were two tables with a group of stakeholders randomly assigned to each. The following stakeholders were at each table. Table 1 Table 2 Gerry Brown Dina Graser Eyren Davis Michelle Cummings Amanda Santo Michael Holloway Jena Tarabad Dylan Reid Saleem Hall John Wilson Each table was given one hour to construct their ideal site with a set of the following materials: A mapped board representing the site and the surrounding area 56 dark blue blocks, each representing 5 floors of office space 16 light blue blocks, each representing 5 floors of creative office space Grey ribbon representing roads Orange ribbon representing bike paths A yellow cylinder representing the transit hub Green paper representing green space A stakeholder used blue paper to add water features The Stakeholder Committee Members were instructed to construct the site based on their preferences for how the site should look. Throughout the process and following the completion of the task, several 5
pictures were taken of the models and notes were taken by facilitators Charlotte Young and Dave Hardy at each station in order to understand the reasoning behind the stakeholders decisions (Appendix A). 6. Clarifications In addition to input that stakeholders offered, they had a few questions of clarification regarding the site following the meeting: Questions/Comments The heteronormativity of the term mom-and-pop might be an issue for some. Will First Gulf consider using more politically correct language? Even with the planned connections, the site will remain very isolated. It will be extremely important to make all entrances to the site as appealing to pedestrians as possible. In particular, the passage of Broadview under the railway tracks needs to be really open - high and wide, with lots of room for pedestrians. I assume it will be necessary to build a bridge to replace the berm. The site should pay respects to its industrial past. Place names, artwork, street furniture, architecture should speak to the industrial past of the site. The Queen's Quay extension simply doesn't work for several different reasons: a. You can't have an elevated road cutting though the entire site. It will cut the site in half. Towards the end of it, for almost half the site, it will be too low for anything to even go under. It will be disastrous for any kind of planning or site design. b. In any case, it doesn't really serve a purpose. As someone pointed out, Queen's Quay is a local road. No-one is going to be coming from the west along Queen's Quay. They're going to be coming along Lake Shore. Everyone is going to be turning left from Lake Shore. Even if the Queen's Quay extension is built, people will turn left onto it from Lake Shore. So there's no real difference if they do it at Broadview instead. c. The Queen's Quay extension means that the entire development is prioritizing cars. It has no other purpose than cars. There's nowhere for pedestrians to go. It's too steep for cyclists, who will in any case take trails. There's not transit plans for it. The whole point of the First Gulf development plan is supposed to be that it is a Yes. First Gulf Response This comment has been noted. This comment has been noted. This comment has been noted. We will have to develop a design that achieves as many objectives as possible; however, access to the site from the west is essential and the Queens Quay extension will serve this function. 6
Questions/Comments First Gulf Response transit-priority plan. In any case, there's no more capacity downtown for more cars to travel through. Putting the Queen's Quay extension through means that First Gulf is destroying any chance for a beautiful space purely to service a tiny proportion of drivers. d. If the road does go in, because neither pedestrians nor cyclists will really use it, they may as well make it a steep 6.5% grade so it only affects half the site. A model to follow might be Edinburgh, which manages multiple levels and steep ascents in an interesting manner. The amphitheatre idea was a good one, too. 7. Next Steps a. The application for the Official Plan Amendment will be submitted in mid-october. This stage of the process will take approximately 1 year. b. The upcoming community engagement events have not yet been scheduled. Once the Official Plan Amendment is approved, the community engagement process will be formally run by the City of Toronto, and they will schedule the upcoming meetings. First Gulf will keep all the contact information and ensure that all members of the Stakeholder Committee are contacted when the community engagement process resumes. c. The website is posted and can be found at project21.firstgulf.com 7
Appendix A: Pictures and notes from Master Plan exercise Table 1: Scenario 1 Facilitator: Dr. Charlotte Young 8
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Notes: Why is everything in squares? The model should have included other shapes of blocks to encourage more creative thinking Does Queens Quay have to go through the site? Why doesn t it go around instead? Circular would be more efficient because their spots of entry would be easier to get to Buildings should not be very tall low lying buildings need to blend in Transit hub has to be in NE corner City planner must create grid first Integrates creative office and traditional office Having a roundabout would help traffic flow We won t get density without higher buildings Minimize shadows in suns path Make the buildings higher towards south; however, keep in mind that there will be residential there eventually Height would be good on the west side Green space all around integrated transit All parking underground Graduation in heights Need road directly from transit hub Access from booth Street roundabout to connect main streets Expect that most people will drive Connections off Martin Goodman trail to site from the south east corner, mid-south How would street cars navigate through roundabouts What about pedestrian tunnel from Broadview and Eastern to site Go under the railroad berm Broadview could be a roundabout when it enters the site Queens Quay through site to connect from west to City s view intention is to make Queens Quay a local road Scenario 1 doesn t have a central focal point SW corner going to be re-naturalized Like to have the roads be curved 10
Table 1: Scenario 2 11
Notes: Less liked overall all, not as good flow Align buildings to not cast shadows No buildings over 30 stories Circles and roundabouts allowed more fluid access points Keep creative space close to film, but also integrate into office towers Links mean rail stations Challenges o Density o Make towers beautiful, glass rooftops 12
Table 2: Facilitator: Dave Hardy 13
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Notes: Need to bring back canals or a way to get water on the site Transit hub close to rail but in the middle of the curved and closer to the residential Ribbon along the railway tracks between the GO berm and properties Widen the berm o Allows the Gardiner on ramps to go further east o Would be easier to do flood protection plans o Take lands north of GO bridge out of the flood plain Curve Broadview further east Better connection between Corktown and Riverside Creative on the perimeter Continue the bike lane north of the railroad tracks Put tall buildings around the transit hub Don t want all high rises, need some midrise Put some creative space in high rise o Put a creative node space in the south east corner of the site o Include institutional use Put high towers near transit hub Do a corridor of green space Let the canal connect to the ship Channel o Will be a storm water management area o Natural flow for mouth Will be a bike path along the canal and water Eliminate pollution Need to have a big public space Creative space anchor at the south end corner of the site need creative space close to the film studios Swans in water Leave floors of creative space in the office space Leave at grade creative with office above Graduated building height Plan taller buildings close to the transit hub Big park in the public space Lots of bike connections over the Don River Trade-off, large space conquers taller buildings No major problem with taller buildings or with higher office spaces Put a gallery and creative space close to the transit hub Have a large, tall building o Have a couple of very tall, well-designed buildings o Tall signature buildings 17
Public art and amenities in the midst of the tall buildings Retail and office district beside the transit hub Stores facing the park Create a lunch spot Goods delivery underground 18